How do I deal with negative feelings?
Firstly, for clarity, let's make a distinction between sensations and feelings. A sensation is simply the raw experience of the internal bodily atmosphere; the silent sense of energetically touching from within and touching the environment from within. For instance, the sensation of the wind on the face, the texture of linen sheets on the skin, the heartbeat in the chest, the contour of the teeth against the tongue, etc. Alternatively, a feeling is a compound of a raw bodily sensation and an additional label, a label conceptualised by thought that is superimposed onto the sensation, like a running commentary of subtitles added to a silent movie.
The sensation to which we refer when we say "the wind on the face" or "the heartbeat in the chest" is experienced as utterly unnamed and non-conceptual in the pristine immediacy of its initial arising. If we are strictly honest, we don't even know it as "the wind on the face" or "the heartbeat in the chest." We just know it as pure....sensation, absolutely silent experiencing. "The wind on the face" and "the heartbeat in the chest" are also labels, specifying descriptions, however they have not yet become what I refer to here as 'feelings', for they are neutral attempts to accurately represent the experience without using polarising definitions, such as pleasant or unpleasant, positive or negative, good or bad. The sensation seems to become a 'feeling' the instant that we attach a name or concept to the raw sensation, such as 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant', giving it an interpretation that is not essential to its living Reality.
Now, with this distinction in our understanding, it is discernible that a 'negative feeling' is a raw bodily sensation with the label 'negative' attached to it. The instant that the mind assigns this sensation with a label like 'negative', and subsequently believes its labelling to be truly accurate, a subtle or not so subtle resistance to the sensation is set in motion. By definition, the sensation is not positive or good, and is therefore, not the pole of the polarity that the mind is oriented to seek. This seeking to achieve positivity or goodness as opposed to the seeming negativity of the sensation is the resistance that, down the road, coalesces into the form of asking for help to 'deal with it', which is code for 'how do I get rid of it?' Why would we want to do something about it? What is the small print in this request? We want to eradicate the sensation in order to be all good, to be at peace, because we believe this sensation has taken away our capacity to be at peace.
Is that so? Can a sensation really prevent us from being at peace? Let us see.
It might seem so palpable and commonsensical that the sensation is negativity itself, however if we look closely, with the microscope of contemplative introspection, we can easily discern that the defining label 'negative' is a superfluous addition that arises after the raw experience of the sensation. The sensation and the label 'negative' are two distinct events that occur in succession, which have, through an act of imagining, merged to give the appearance that they are one and the same phenomenon.
If we breakdown the frame by frame experience of this 'negative feeling' we will invariably see that firstly a neutral and undefined sensation arises, and then, as quickly as you can say 'negative', a thought pops into view, attaching a conceptual label to it. That’s how it happens, every time. No sensation comes tailor-made with a label of definition embedded in it. All sensations come totally naked and ineffable. The notion of what this sensation is, is always added. For example, anger, fear, shame, depression and guilt are merely ideas, abstract symbols, which are added to the experience as an afterthought.
The thought that interprets the experience is not what the essential nature of the experience is by itself. The experience is the experience. There is an experience we all know that clearly elucidates this understanding. When we see a beautiful landscape present itself within our awareness, the mind plunges into silent appreciation, and from that silent experience, the mind rises with the utterance, 'wow.' The experience of the landscape is a silent contemplating of the view. We are just there, in the innocence of pure experiencing, beholding the totality. The word 'wow' is an attempt to give the experience a label. But need we try to make a sound in order to know the reality of the experience? No! Before the thought arises to label the experience, we are already fully knowing what the experience essentially is. We could just as well ramble gibberish in the face of the beauty, to suffice as communication of our ineffable experience.
The label 'negative' alone, like the 'wow', is not the trouble, rather it is the belief that the label is what the sensation is, that it truly defines what we are experiencing. That belief alone manifests the sense of psychological suffering. We can have a sensation be described by thought as 'butterflies in my tummy' and know full well that there are no actual butterflies in our tummy, and therefore we don’t wonder, 'how did they get in there in the first place?' Nor do we freak out and run to the doctor for surgery to remove the winged ticklers.
Just as we can have all manor of thoughts without believing them, we can have a sensation that thought describes as 'negative' without believing such a thought. In that case, what will our experience be of the sensation? That this sensation is just what it is; pure sensation.
How do we see this truth with clarity?
By seeing that the 'negativity', and all possible adjectives, are not inherent in the sensation itself, but are rather evanescent superimpositions of thought. We can then pragmatically remove the labels and enquire into the essential nature of the sensation, to discern what we are actually experiencing. If we do this, we will discern every time, if we are thorough enough, that the sensation is just pure, undefined, unnamable sensation, that makes no threat to our presence.
How would the experience be if thought were not believed in?
Check it out now. If you don't refer to any mental interpretation, what is really experienced here?
...silence, pure sensation.
Precisely. And are you affected by this sensation? Are you, Awareness, that which is aware of the sensation, affected by it? How would you even know that you were 'affected' if you have ceased referring to the interpretation of thought? You would have no idea or conviction of being affected. The raw experience of yourself and the raw experience of the sensation admit of no evidence of 'negativity', 'unpleasantness', or 'being affected.' It is merely from the imaginary point of view of the mind that such things seem to occur.
Are you bound by the mind? Or are you the Reality of Awareness which is aware of the mind?
I am aware of the mind. I am not bound by it.
So, can you ever be bound by any of the ideas that the mind fabricates, such as 'being affected by the mind', or 'affected by a sensation'?
No. I could only imagine that I was affected by the mind, or by the sensation. But, I wouldn't really be affected.
Right on. Awareness, yourself, can never be affected by the mind, or by sensation. Deeper still we can reveal why, in the essential truth, Awareness cannot be affected by the mind, by sensation or by any form or phenomena that exists. The reason is that Awareness is not separate from anything that exists. Noticing that Awareness is aware of something is all the confirmation we need of the unity of Awareness and that something. Awareness could not be aware of something that was separate from itself. Awareness and the 'something', whatever it is, must share their essential Reality.
There is only one essential Reality to all that exists, and that Reality is Awareness itself, your very own self. Being one indivisible wholeness, there is no possibility of Awareness separating from itself to issue forth an action to itself. As such, it remains unaffected by everything that appears within itself, just as the sky remains unaffected by the play of clouds, wind, storms, hurricanes that appear within it. See thoughts, sensations and perceptions appearing like weather systems within your wide open sky, and see that you are eternally free from their influence.
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